The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Penguin Classics)

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On a summer day in July he walked into a wheat field where he was painting and shot himself in the chest. Reading his Letters I feel that he could not have disapproved, since he himself was addicted to reading biographies of other painters, those he admired, hoping to find a guide to his own path as a painter. I'll send you another, better drawing of it than this croquis from memory; the house to the left is pink, with green shutters; the one that's shaded by a tree, that's the restaurant where I go to eat supper every day.

For instance, he came up with the Starry Night and pondered painting it for two years before actually doing it.

The letters can be read as an autobiography of an artist; time spent in Brabant, Paris and London, The Hague, Drenthe, Nuenen, Antwerp, Arles, Saint-Remy and Auvers chronicle his corporal travels as well as his artistic growth.

Personal letters seem to be so much more profitable to me as a reader than fiction, or even a biography.I first began my reading of these letters as a way to learn more about the art process, the way to creation coming from the mind of such a gifted artist such as Vincent Van Gogh.

And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.

He had a bad relationship with his parents and often quarrelled with his brother, Theo, who was his closest confidant. I learned through almost countless correspondences that he was rarely given the respect he felt he deserved, and he had just terrible luck with women.